Today, vehicle information systems implemented within motor vehicles have fairly extensive data communication and data storage capabilities. In order to effectively implement such vehicle information systems, a designer should address various power management, network and system security issues. With respect to power management, a vehicle information system with a hard drive or a wireless local area network (LAN), e.g., an IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN, will generally deplete a battery of a motor vehicle in a matter of a few hours, if the vehicle information system is allowed to run after the motor vehicle is turned off.
Currently, power management of a vehicle information system is implemented by placing the vehicle information system into standby, shortly after the motor vehicle is turned off. When the motor vehicle is turned off, the motor vehicle must then be started for the vehicle information system to function or at least a portion of the vehicle information system must periodically awake to determine if any external devices are attempting to communicate with the vehicle information system. In the former case, a user of the vehicle information system must start the motor vehicle each time the individual wishes to communicate with the vehicle information system to, for example, download music or video files from a personal computer (PC) to the vehicle information system. It should be appreciated that requiring a user to start the motor vehicle, each time the user wished to download information from the user's PC to the vehicle information system, is highly inconvenient. Assuming a portion of the vehicle information system is designed to periodically awake to detect an attempted communication, the user may also become frustrated with the downloading process, as a typical wake-up cycle would be about five to ten minutes.
In a typical vehicle information system, network management is minimal, as the network is on when the vehicle information system is on and off otherwise. This creates a network security issue, as the system is subject to unwanted connectivity from malicious users and other intrusive invasion of the vehicle information system, when the motor vehicle is running. In general, the vehicle information system could implement the same or similar network security as the personal computer (PC) to which the vehicle information system is designed to communicate. While certain security protocols exist to protect home PCs, such as wired equivalent privacy (WEP), frequently the security protocols are not implemented and/or are not enabled on home PCs. While this may be tolerable for a PC located within a residence, failing to implement a security protocol for a vehicle information system is undesirable, as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) has generally been required to warrant operation of the vehicle information system.
For example, when a virus is introduced to a home PC, the owner of the PC is responsible for fixing the problem. However, when if a virus is introduced to a vehicle information system associated with a motor vehicle, an automobile dealer may be required to fix the system, for example, at the expense of the system manufacturer. Further, as more in-vehicle systems allow downloading of information onto storage media, e.g., flash memory and hard disk drives, associated with the motor vehicle (via, for example, a universal serial bus (USB) attached plug and play device or other media, such as a compact disc (CD)), unauthorized downloads may occur. For example, secondary drivers of a motor vehicle may download copyrighted music or video to a mass storage device, within the motor vehicle, in violation of copyright laws. Additionally, the unauthorized downloads may introduce viruses to the vehicle information system and utilize an unacceptable amount of storage space.
What is needed is a convenient technique for remotely activating a vehicle information system, within a motor vehicle, to allow for downloading data from a remote computer. It would also be desirable for the technique to facilitate improved network and system security.